Category Archives: 2022

2022

D-5 Barracuda:1, Maggy:0

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Hi everyone!

I’m so glad to say that our team has actually gotten so much better at using our tools out in the field! We went out today to two more coral reef patches and were able to collect data the first time it took 40 minutes and the second time it took 30 minutes, both of which are a great improvement from yesterday’s hour long data collection at a single patch! I was also super glad to see some of the Tunicates Sophie talked about in her taxon lecture last night. Considering how small they are I thought I wouldn’t spot them, but the second patch we visited actually had a ton laying around in many of the corals. Our group also saw and captured a second lionfish today. This one was much smaller than the one collected yesterday. But mostly everyone in the group seems very excited to have lionfish “ceviche.” Regarding our sea urchin collecting we were able to find a lot more than at the patch we visited yesterday! That either means we were at patches today with lots more, or that we are getting better at finding their hiding spots. Today I also happened to (for the first time) slightly rub against some fire coral. It hurt a bit right after I came in contact with it but it got a little more painful once I was out of the water. Thankfully the burning sensation subsided in about half an hour! Another new experience I had today was seeing a barracuda for the first time! It was actually huge and really intimidating. I was kinda shocked by its behavior as well, but I could see how it is fitting of a piscivorous fish! While most fish I have encountered so far on this trip tend to see any of us and turn and swim the other way, when the barracuda and I made eye contact instead of swimming away it began swimming towards me. Let me tell you as soon as I saw that I started swimming the other way! After seeing that barracuda I had no idea I would see another one, but I happened to see yet another at the Glover’s reef gift shop!

2022

i thought the urchin was my friend…but it was anemone

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Unfortunately, the day did not begin with urchins, but they will enter the scene soon, don’t worry!

We started off the morning by planning out another experiment. We knew we were going to be visiting preserved reef patches and non-preserved reef patches and collecting some sort of data with the quadrats, and that we would be doing urchin scavenger hunts. From there, we developed a research question that we could answer by gathering this data. We decided to investigate the correlation between live coral coverage and urchin prevalence, and how the amount of each changed between protected areas and non protected areas. We did not finish collecting data, so stay tuned!

Before we went out to the reefs, we waded in the sea grass bed and collected specimens to look at more closely in the outdoor lab. Some notable finds include a Caribbean spiny lobster, mantis shrimp, damsel fish, several varieties of crabs, lime urchin, anemone, corallimorph, conchs, and our favorite-brown algae! We found some sargassum natans, and some of the saucer leaf algae!

Afterwards, we went to the reef patches. We went to the non-protected area first to collect our data. It was difficult conditions, since the waves were strong and it was hard to stay in place. The urchin hunt was also difficult, since they like to hide in little burrows, so one could not easily get them out without harming them. We then went to the protected reef to snorkel for fun.  Entering the protected area, I felt like I had died and gone to brown algae heaven (although maybe that wasn’t a great sign for the corals). There was saucer leaf algae, white scroll algae, and sargassum everywhere! They were intermixed with another type of algae, although I couldn’t identify it. The algae was growing all over the old, dead corals so densely I couldn’t even see the sand. Exciting stuff!

We also found a damsel fish garden, which was super cool. The damsel fish have little gardens where they cultivate their favorite algae, and protect it from other fish. And finally, the group spotted a lionfish, which was promptly speared (lionfish are invasive, and their capture is actually encouraged!) and brought aboard so we can use it for activities later this week.

When we got back, we counted, IDed, and measured the diameter of the urchins we collected, and then settled in for the night! Tomorrow, we are going to be collecting more data for our research, and maybe we’ll even have an answer. See you all then!

-Elena

some of the algal friends we collected
a slate pencil urchin
the damsel fish garden ft. the gardener itself
saucer-leaf algae and the unknown algae
free the homie
…but like don’t cuz they’re invasive 🙁
2022, Uncategorized

Lobsters and Lionfish

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To start the day we designed a study that we could execute on patches of coral reefs inside the lagoon. What we came up with was to see how density of sea urchins would effect the percentage of coral that was alive vs dead! However, we needed to go out on the boat to collect data and we didn’t have time before lunch, so before hand we collected organisms from a shallow sea grass area behind the kitchen.

What we found was incredible! We brought back punching mantis shrimp, a lobster, a poisonous sea urchin, conchs, damsel fish that grow and protect algae gardens and so much more!

There were also an insane number of algae species. One’s I hadn’t found before include Chaetomopha linum (sea hair) Caulerpa sertulariodes(green feather Algae). Acetabularia caliculus (Green Mermaid’s Wine Glass) Halimeda , Caulerpa ashmeadii (also feathery), and Halimeda monile.

After lunch we went to collect our data on a patch reef, but it was very shallow and very windy, so trying to count how much coral we were seeing while being pushed around and trying not to hit anything felt impossible!

After that adventure, we decided to go into the marine protected area just to snorkel for fun, and we found much more fish diversity and varied topography. Dr. Solomon also speared and invasive lion fish we plan to eat tomorrow. I also saw a pine cone algae of genus Rhipocephalus and some Ventricaria ventricose (which look like bubbles and are all one cell… they are super fun to explode) both fore the first time!

 

 

2022

Day 4: A Field Aquarium

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Starting a new experiment today, the group came up with the research question “What is the correlation between the percentage of live coral and the sea urchin prevalence? How does this change in a protected versus unprotected zone?” We will be collecting data for this experiment over the next couple days, starting with today. After coming up with the experiment layout, we had some extra time before lunch so we went to the shallower sea grass area on the North side of the island to try to collect as many organisms as we could find into buckets. We were able to find conch, mantis shrimp, a lobster, a Diadima antillarum (a venomous urchin), corallomorphs, anemone, and even some Crustose Corralline red algae! One cool fact that I learned today is that spiny lobsters don’t have claws, unlike the ones that we see in the US. It was like our own little aquarium (which releases the animals back into the ocean of course).

After lunch, we went out on the boat to begin collecting our data. We first went to a patch we went to wasn’t a Marine Protected Area and was pretty shallow. Here, there was a lot of coral rubble and diseased coral, and it was pretty difficult to keep still with the current. To estimate the number of sea urchins in the area, we were all given 10 minutes to collect as many as we could. I was able to find a couple, but they were both underneath rocks that I couldn’t break. We ended up finding 20 different urchins! Also Dr. Correa picked up some Galaxuara spp. (a red algae) that was actually all over the sea floor. We then moved onto a MPA and got to snorkel around, just to explore. There was a huge difference in the landscape (obviously there were topography factors involved in the difference but still) with an abundance of health coral, super diverse grouping of fish and coral, and it was absolutely stunning. Here, I was even able to identify Jania spp. (a red algae) which was actually everywhere throughout the reef. I also was able to identify  Fire Coral, Sergeant Fish, Dusky Damsel Fish, French Angel Fish (maybe one of my favorites now), White Scroll Algae, Boulder Star Coral, and Whitestar Sheet Coral. AND Dr. Solomon was able to spear a Lion Fish so we will be making that into some delicious Lion Fish ceviche tomorrow or so!!

– Sophia

Eucidaris tribuloides
Crustose Coraline Algae!
Possibly another variety of Crustose Coraline aglage!
Diadema anitllarum
Carribean Spiny Lobster
2022

Day 4: Never Seen a Reef, Never Seen one Atoll

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I must say today has been my favorite day so far, yet I am sure that will be replaced soon. We snorkeled two different patch reefs (one in a marine protected area and one which was not), in addition to examining many organisms up close in the wet lab. For the wet lab activities, we collected a variety of life from the shallow waters which surround the island. Crabs, lobsters, damsel fish, mantis shrimps, corallimorphs, a ton of algae species, and many more organisms were transferred to buckets and trays of seawater. Much like I experienced with stony corals, seeing an example organism with your own eyes provides a far different picture than the unrealistically perfect images of textbooks. We did collect a few pieces of Porites divaricate, which we were then able to look at under a microscope and see the small polyps in much greater detail. I will say when I was out in the shallows, I saw a small Nurse Shark! Which was a very cool find. This was definitely a fun activity overall.

However, my favorite part of today was snorkeling the two reefs. Packed with a multitude of stony corals, soft corals, sponges, fish, and much more, snorkeling these reefs was incredible. I saw my first patch of Acropora cerviconis, which is critically endangered due to a few devastating diseases (which I also presented about during my topic lecture tonight). I saw a vast number of Orbicella, Porites, and brain corals. By fanning a light current onto the Porites divaricata, I could see the polyps retract and the fuzzy texture of the coral become smooth. I believe I also saw a few colonies of Siderastrae radians scattered around. Also as you may have seen in other blogs, a Lionfish was found and speared. Something I had not seen until today.

This may not be everyone’s ideal “beach vacation spot,” but being here on the atoll is probably one of mine. It was discussed briefly on the boat (while shivering in our still wet dive suits) that fun doesn’t always have to be comfortable, and that was a very applicable and true point.

~Rusty

Porites divericata close up

2022

Research? More like reef-search!!! (Day 4)

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Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 4 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we started our attempt to answer our new research questions: “ What is the correlation between percent live coral and the sea urchin population?” and “How does that correlation change between mpa and non mpa reefs?”

Our hypothesis are as follows:  we think that areas with moderate amounts of sea urchins will have the highest percentage of live reefs. Additionally, we think that the unprotected reefs  will have an abundance of sea urchins and therefore have less live coral. We think this because unprotected reefs are susceptible to overfishing, which reduces the amount of creatures that prey on sea urchins.

Our methods were to lay out 50ft of transect tape in random, radial direction s from one central point. Then, at every 5 meters we would count the squares of live coral and dead coral using a quadrat. Our final part, would be collecting as many sea urchins as possible in 10 minutes, which we would identify later.

This method sounds easy in practice, but let me tell you. Counting. The. Corals. Was. Hellish. Don’t try to tell me,  “Corals are delicate, don’t touch them because they’ll get hurt.” * I now know the truth. They will cut you, burn you, and make you lose your quadrat to the current. If I wasn’t wearing a wetsuit, I would be covered in the wrath of a fire coral right now. So, yeah, getting the data from the West patch reef was very difficult, but collecting the sea urchins wasn’t easy either. Most of the time, the sea urchins were 1cm-2inches burrowed in the remains of hard corals (specifically the ones with a little algae overgrowth). They were hard to see at first, but after awhile they were easy to find. I saw many types, and as the echinoderms expert, I knew exactly what they were (mostly). The most common find was a Common reef urchin, Echinometra viridis, identifiable by the dark body, orange spikes, and small white rings on their spines. We saw a few reef burrowing urchins, Echinometra lucunter, and 2 pencil slate urchins, Eucidaris tribuloides. We found so many urchins that I could hardly count the ones in the wild, but we brought back 20 to classify.  My three favorite finds of this trip were a Flamingo tongue snail, a lobster trio(featured picture), and the donkey dung sea cucumber (Holothuria mexicana). I found the sea cucumber under a coral, and I got to hold him, he was very squishy and started molding to the shape of my hands. I couldn’t identify any particular behavior that he was doing, but maybe he just needed a nap.

Our other daily activity was making a taxa showcase! We gathered lots of creatures from the seagrass beds behind the kitchen. We found one Spiny Sea Urchin, Diadema antillarum, and Kaiu graciously scooped it up for me to talk about. He hardly stole the show though because we found so many types of green algae, a lobster, and two mantis shrimp!

Oh, and did I mention that Prof. Solomon speared a lionfish? Looks like we might have ceviche tomorrow!

Till then!

QOTD: “You made the *dumb* graph, this is on you”

The first mantis shrimp I’ve ever seen. Everytime I go to an aquarium they don’t have them, and they are supposed to be really hard to find. I finally accomplished my life goal (twice in one day!!!)
Me and the Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber, Holothuria mexicana
Black long-spined sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, somehow being carried in a tiny net
Some of the guides we used to identify the sea urchins. I made the one on the left!!!
My teacher speared a lionfish in front of me … I LOVE BIOLOGY

* please do not intentionally touch corals its a) illegal and b) bad for corals

2022

Day 4: Patch Reef Health + Sea Urchins

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Our class traveled on boat to perform some examinations of the patch reefs on Glover’s Atoll today! Using our transect tapes and quadrates again, our class decided toe analyze the relationship between the density of sea urchins and percentage of live and dead coral on both marine protected reefs as well as unprotected reefs. We discovered that although our methodology seemed sound that with the shallow waters, strong ocean currents, and the presence of millepora alcicornis or Branching Fire Coral that was present on both reefs. Jasmine got stung by this hydrozoan unfortunately :(, but the stings will go away with hydrocortisone! We did discover that the marine protected reefs were deeper and had healthier and more abundant corals and fish!

In the marine protected area I saw many solitary Christmas Tree worms of all colors!Right next to it is some Magnificent Feather Duster worms!

I also got to see my first split crown feather duster! You can tell by the how the radiole splits perfectly in half mirroring itself.

I believe I also got to see my first Christmas Tree Hydroid which was very exciting!

I even saw three lobsters with Faith all lined up in a row! Incredible!Right after I saw my biology professor, Dr. Solomon, spear a lionfish which is an invasive and harmful, yet delicious, species to the Caribbean. Lillian was very excited! 😀

Earlier in the day we collected all sorts of sea creatures for examination in the wet lab room. There was: green algae species, brown algae species, glass shrimp, conch species, anemones, mantis shrimp, several crab species, sea urchin (Caio picked it up with a net), and even a lobster!

I can’t wait to go to see more on the outer reefs tomorrow! Peace out!

~ Maegan

2022

TFBs: 1 Lionfish: 0

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My life goal has finally been achieved, but we’ll get to that soon.

This was a great morning for crustaceans. It was too windy to go out to the fore reef so we stayed closer to shore and went looking through the seagrass for organisms to bring back to the wet lab to examine. We found lots of algae, snails, and other organisms, but I don’t care about those, I’m here for the crustaceans. Can you spot how many crabs are in this bucket? I don’t actually remember how many we caught, but we got plenty of aquatic hermit crabs, a green clinging crab or emerald crab (Mithralculus sculptus) who was very well behaved and let me pick him up without pinching me.

We also found several brown crabs that I haven’t been able to identify yet, who were not as nice and tried to take a chunk out of my thumb when I went to move them 🙁

We also saw a spiny lobster! One of our water safety officers picked it up in the seagrass and plopped it into a bucket for us to examine.

It was pretty small for a lobster, but still big enough to be intimidating to those unfamiliar with lobsters.

We also found several mantis shrimp, which I had no idea were even in this area!

After an afternoon boat ride we went to a large reef patch and spotted a lionfish! It was the biggest lionfish I’ve ever seen and luckily this time our professor brought the lionfish spears and was able to impale it and bring it back onto the boat for us. It was almost perfect timing after my presentation yesterday about the lionfish invasion of these reefs and how my life goal was to eat one. It’s been years of me searching for a lionfish, and soon I will finally be able to eat one.

I will sleep soundly tonight with the promise of lionfish tomorrow.

2022

D-4 Impaling my taxa :’(

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Today the day started pretty wonderful, we got to bring many organisms from the local coast to the wet lab and have the many experts in our class identify them and tell us a little about each species. From this activity I really liked looking at things under the microscope, specially I got to look at a cool coral fragment that someone found! I also got to see a mantis shrimp for the first time!

Later in the day, we came up with a new question and went out to test it on different corals than those we had explored earlier in the week. With our research we want to understand if there is some sort of correlation between the amount of sea urchins observed and the amount of live coral. Our question originates from how sea urchins burrow into the corals which may weaken the coral and leave them more susceptible to disease. During our time on the reef patch we collected enough data, yet collecting that data was sure an adventure. The waves were way stronger than we had anticipated and we were constantly pushed into corals or our partners before we got to get the information we needed. Yet thankfully we were able to get data and also collect some urchins which we later examined back in the lab. (Don’t worry, we are taking good care of the sea urchins and will return them home tomorrow!)

We then went to a second patch this time not to work but to do some relaxing snorkeling. It was during this second snorkeling that I was shocked to see a lionfish flopping mid air on a stick. I was sad to see a member of my taxa of interest (piscivorous fish) that way, yet I also know that these can be really damaging to biodiversity, so I am glad that our team could contribute to improving the probability of many other species to survive via this kill of an invasive species. Also I am glad that some member of our group who really really want to try them will have a great dinner tomorrow(?)!

Also regarding tomorrow, I’m nervous but I also can’t wait to continue researching our question about corals and sea urchins to see what we discover!

2022

Day 4 in the (mixed) bag

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(EDIT:REVISED AGAIN, it’s back up and running)(EDIT as I’m in the process of writing this, the power tripped again and so we don’t have lights or fans right now either 😢)

As my title punn-ily states, today was a mixed bag. No pictures on this blog post because my camera took on water and killed the screen, and I’ve yet to see if any of my pictures from the past 4 days can be recovered from the SD card. And I had some really good pictures on there too 🙁

 

We were supposed to go to the fore reef this morning, but it was too windy to go out there safely, so that got postponed to another day (tbd, hopefully tomorrow morning). Our night snorkel has also been delayed because of it. The wind, despite its faults though, has made sleeping in the AC-less bunks so much more tolerable, because, you know, airflow! (I’m much too spoiled to air conditioning, I’m realizing). But today really was a beautiful day, perfect weather, and the water was stunning teal!

 

Our first activity was a brainstorming session to come up with our next experimental design proposal. After that we ventured out for an hour of specimen collection in the shallows behind the kitchen. We found some really cool little creatures, including a mantis shrimp (which, did you know, has 16 cones in its eyes, meaning it can probably see things and colors that we can’t even imagine), some crabs, some urchins, and in my taxon, a few queen conchs and a milk conch (which was a first for me so far!). Here’s the mixed bag part: awesome creatures, but the water smelled like poop. Straight fish manure.🤢 I was so happy to get rinsed off once we got back.

The second part of the day is where the interesting snorkeling takes place! We took a boat off of the Marine Protected Area to the West reef to execute the first part of our experimental design, data collection with transects on the reef, which was certainly interesting. We were trying to answer the question of what is the correlation of sea urchin presence and percentage of live and dead coral, and how does that change between the MPA and non-protected areas.

We don’t have a conclusion yet, but we did do the first part of data collection there. That non-MPA section was honestly really sad, with rampant disease, lots of coral rubble, and shallow waters, and my partner and I had to omit 2 of our planned measurement sites due to 1. Being unable to take the measures without brushing against fire coral, which I accidentally touched with my thigh, and 2. Our quadrat is completely broken . We also collected some sea urchins to measure and speciate them once we got back.

 

We then went onwards to a MPA reef, which was so much deeper and nice and much more alive. Scott speared one of the invasive lion fish. This part of the trip was amazing! I got to dive some in the beautiful water!

 

See what I mean by mixed bag? That describes today well.  Of course, we still had our daily lectures to expect, which I made it through tho!